Voice activation

Abstract

A circuit and a method are given, to realize a very flexible voice activation system using a modular building block approach, that is adaptively tailored to handle certain relevant and case specific operational characteristics describing most of the possible acoustical differing environmental cases to be found in the field of speech recognition. Included are determinations of “Noise estimation and “Speech estimation” values, done effectively without use of Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) methods or zero crossing algorithms only by analyzing the modulation properties of human voice. Said circuit and method are designed in order to be implemented with a very economic number of components, capable to be realized with modern integrated circuit technologies.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] (1) Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention generally relates to speech detection and / or recognition and more particularly to a system, a circuit and a concomitant method thereof for detecting the presence of a desired signal component within an acoustical signal, especially recognizing a component characterizing human speech. Even more particularly, the present invention is providing a human speaker recognition by means of a detection system with automatically generated activation trigger impulses at the moment a voice activity is detected. [0003] (2) Description of the Prior Art [0004] Sound or acoustical signals are besides others, such as video signals e.g., one main category of analog and—most often also noise polluted—signals modern telecommunications are dealing with; where all signals together—generally after transformation into digital form—are termed as communication data signals. Analyzing and processing such sound signals is...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0027] A principal object of the present invention is to realize a very flexible and adaptable voice activation circuits module in form of very manufacturable integrated circuits at low cost.

[0028] Another principal object of the present invention is to provide an adaptable and flexible method for operating said voice activation circuits module implementable with the help of integrated circuits.

[0029] Also another principal object of the present invention is to include determinations of “Noise estimation and “Speech estimation” values, done effectively without use of Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) methods or zero crossing algorithms only by analyzing the modulation properties of human voice.

Problems solved by technology

The disadvantage thereby is, that—without additional precautions—some kind of noise can also lead to an activation signal.

Unfortunately, the benefits of voice activity detection are not ordinarily available in speech recognition systems, as the identification of speech is very complex, time-consuming and costly and also considered being not reliable enough.

The main problems in performing a reliable human speech detection and voice activation lie in the fact, that the speech detection procedures have to be adapted to all the possible environmental and operational situations in such a way, that always the most apt procedures i.e. algorithms and their optimum parameters are chosen, as no unique procedure on its own is capable of fulfilling all the desired requirements under all conditions.

These solutions are therefore on one hand, only usable with optimum results for certain well defined cases, thus exhibiting however a somewhat limited complexity or are on the other hand very complex and use extremely demanding algorithms requiring great processing power, thus offering however greater flexibility with respect to their adaptability.

The limitation in applicability of such a low-cost circuit on one hand and the complexity and the power demands of such a higher quality circuit on the other hand are the main disadvantages of these prior art solutions.

These disadvantages pose major problems for the propagation of that sort of circuits.

It is therefore a challenge for the designer of such devices and circuits to achieve a high-quality and also low-cost solution.

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